


Siren Song

by JennaLee



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Creative description of merman genitalia, I don't know what else to tell you, Interspecies, M/M, MerRhett, Rhett is a merman okay, handjobs, merman/human sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 02:35:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5030365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JennaLee/pseuds/JennaLee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Link has a remarkable encounter with a real, live mythical beast named Rhett. (Inspired by GMM 781)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Siren Song

**Author's Note:**

> Allow me to point out that Rhett is a sentient being, and willing.  
> *slinks away, blushing*

It started off like any normal Saturday for Charles Lincoln Neal (the Third), a modestly successful engineer and bachelor who had recently traded in his life in North Carolina for a better job and better weather in sunny Los Angeles.

Link took advantage of his day off by sleeping in until nine, and then had coffee and cereal for breakfast just like always. He sat on his porch with his laptop and mug and made plans for the following day to meet Nick for some mountain biking. The lunch plans he’d made for today with a fellow engineer at work (and potential date, who’d shown more than just a spark of interest in the handsome single brunet – or so Link had thought) fell through when the guy texted to say that he was being dragged along to some family function up in San Francisco. It sounded like a thin excuse. Link wasn’t fazed. There were plenty of things to do on his own, and plenty of fish in the sea. 

Since he wasn’t in the mood to lounge around the house all day he decided to head down to the beach for a hike. Living on the coast in LA still hadn’t lost his charm for Link. He had yet to tire of the peace he felt when listening to the crashing waves and basking in LA’s never-ending sunshine. Throwing on a red T-shirt and a pair of shorts, he slathered sunscreen on his arms and legs and a little on his nose and forehead. The smell of coconuts clung to him. Finally he grabbed his old grey camping backpack, threw a water bottle in it, and got in the car.

The beach he liked best was a ways away but Link liked how it was almost abandoned. He was a social guy and didn’t mind people, but the popular beaches were always strewn with cigarette butts and broken bottles and garbage. The screaming hordes of seagulls pooped all over the sand and the cars and the beachgoers themselves with reckless abandon as they dive-bombed In-n-Out wrappers and Doritos bags. Link preferred a few more minutes of dealing with traffic to such nuisances.

Forty-five minutes into his walk, the humdrum day took a most unexpected turn. Link, lost in his own thoughts, almost tripped over what he first thought to be a big dead fish washed up on the beach. There was a big green scaly tail all wound up in a nylon fishing net, sticking half out of a tiny rocky tidal pool. _Poor guy got trapped,_ Link thought absently. _It’s such a shame that there’s so much garbage floating in the ocean._ He prepared to take a big step over the fish, focusing more on finding likely footholds on the slick wet rocks than on the corpse itself.

Then the tail twitched as Link stepped over it, and he thought, _That’s not a dead fish._

And then he actually _looked_ , and screamed because it wasn’t a fish at all. Link’s arms flailed wildly for balance as he did such a sharp double-take that his foot slipped on a rock. His other foot plunged into the pool, soaking his shoe and sock, and it was a miracle that Link managed not to roll his ankle and seriously hurt himself. By another dose of sheer luck he caught himself with his hands when he fell forward. The rocks cut into his palms but didn’t break skin. Even if they had, Link would not have noticed.

There was a real, honest-to-God merman lying on the beach.

 _This has to be a prank._ Link looked wildly back and forth to see if there were any people hiding, watching, giggling at his terrified reaction, phones in hand to film the fun. But he didn’t see a soul. Focusing on the beast before him again, Link felt suddenly hysterical. The merman was green, his tail darker than his humanoid torso, its hair and beard green too. Deep green stripes raked over his shoulders and chest. Green all over. Even his ears. Link wanted to scream again but his throat felt too tight. The more he looked, the more he realized that it was no prank. There were subtle differences in the merman that made it impossible for it to be a guy dressed up in a costume. For one, the merman’s head was underwater but it appeared to be breathing. For another, there was no hard line where the tail scales ended and the human skin on the torso began. They blended too seamlessly. Muscles flexed visibly within the tail as if the beast was semi-conscious and still trying to swim or free itself. 

“Oh…my…God,” Link said in a weak voice, and then he sat down hard and tried to remember how to breathe. He put his head between his knees – knees that felt like jelly – and counted to twenty. Slowly, he stood back up when he felt somewhat normal again. The merman had not moved. It seemed to be making a faint grimace. _It’s still alive._

Link glanced around again, trying to assess the situation and absorb the shock of this monumental moment. He needed help. An aquarist or a marine biologist. Or anyone with a camera. This had to be documented! Out of all the semi-plausible crypto-zoological beasts and their legends, one of the most ridiculous ones was actually true. Mermen. Merpeople, rather. This merman wasn’t like those weird amphibious things in the Harry Potter movies. Despite being green and half-fish, he was attractive enough. If he were to gather evidence – a video, a DNA sample, maybe a bit of hair or something – he’d be _famous!_

But there was nobody to tell, and his phone was back in the car. No ships, no surfers, no beachgoers. Just seagulls and the whispering sound of the waves breaking against the shore. The silence allowed him another moment to consider the sight before him, and his initial elation faded. This mythical beast was hurt. Maybe dying. It was all alone, trapped, probably hungry and miserable.

Link felt a stab of guilt pierce him like a knife through his heart. What was he _thinking?_ His first thought was how famous he’d be for broadcasting this merman’s existence to the world? Suddenly, Link felt very small, thinking of all the things his own species did to other animals, even very humanoid ones like apes. He did not kid himself. If the world knew a merman existed, he would not be allowed to live freely in the ocean. Likely he’d be shoved in a zoo, maybe subjected to awful tests, probably banded or tagged and thrown into a tank somewhere so people could pay to gawk at him.

Then the merman turned its face up into the open air, let out a pained noise and opened its eyes. The netting had wrapped around its tail fins firmly, trapping them against the body of the tail itself, and in freeing itself the merman had entangled one wrist in the mess, too. The nylon strings were so tight that they were digging into its skin. Link was glad not to see any blood but wondered if the water was washing it away. _He can’t swim, he probably can’t find food. How long has he been like this?_ The merman gave a weak thrash and Link gasped aloud as the motion of its tail suddenly made it look a lot more realistic. The entire length of it seemed to be muscle and could undulate at will. It may have hurt the merman to move, because it grunted with the effort and bit its lower lip. 

Terror and pity filled his heart. “Oh, you poor thing,” he said, and knelt down beside it cautiously. 

His noise made the merman whip its head to the side. When its eyes met Link’s, they widened with – fear? Awe? Hopelessness? Link didn’t know, but he thought those eyes were bright with intelligence. Instinct made him reach an arm out to touch the merman’s shoulder, words of comfort rushing to his lips. _I’d be scared of people too, if I lived in the ocean especially._ His own species polluted with abandon and spilled oil and killed too many fish and destroyed coral reefs. Humans killed sharks needlessly just because their fins were a delicacy. They killed highly intelligent species like whales for oil and captured their dolphin cousins for the entertainment industry. And of course, they made nets like this that killed innocent ocean dwellers. Link had to wonder how much Rhett knew about his species.

“Hey, hey there, it’s okay,” Link tried to say soothingly. “I can help. I’m gonna try to help.” He tried to grasp the merman’s arm, the one trapped in the mass of netting, but the creature panicked and thrashed its tail again. Its free arm pushed Link’s chest away before it ducked its mouth beneath the water and let out a piercing call that raised goose bumps all over Link’s arms. _Can he only speak underwater?_ he wondered to himself.

“Are you calling for help?” Link asked him, keeping his voice gentle. He was afraid – afraid of how badly this merman could hurt him, or if other merpeople would show up to hurt Link, thinking he was the one responsible for their friend’s state. Although Link didn’t know how a merperson could get out of the sea and into the pool unless they beached themselves like this big green guy did. “Are there more of you out there? Why are you all alone?”

The merman seemed to relax a fraction of an inch at Link’s tone, but he still flinched when Link reached down to see how tightly he was trapped. “Don’t worry, don’t worry,” Link repeated as the beast watched him with narrowed, suspicious eyes. “What’s your name?” he asked it foolishly. The merman’s eyebrow hiked as if he caught the intonation of a question. Link pointed at his own chest. “Link. My name is Link.” 

The merman followed the motion of his hand, and then looked directly into Link’s face. He had beautiful eyes that reminded Link of how the ocean looked on a cloudy day. They were a little green, but not as green as the rest of him. Somehow, despite the water, his hair swooped upward as if styled that way. It looked like a haircut a human might have sculpted. He had a beard, too, stiff with salt and green like the hair on his head. As far as Link could tell it was the only hair on his entire body. He was handsome, it had to be said. If he were a normal-coloured human strolling around LA, Link would probably try to get his number.

“Link,” Link repeated, as clearly as he could. He gave the merman a tentative forced smile. _Don’t attack me, man, I really just want to help._

The merman pressed its lips together for an instant, furrowed its brow again, and said, in a deep croak, “Link.”

“Yeah, you got it!” This time Link’s smile was genuine. Out of water, the merman had a deep rumbling voice compared to the ethereal cry he had let out a few minutes before. When Link’s touched the merman’s trapped arm again, it did not try to struggle. Instead he watched intently as Link attempted to untangle the strings. It had a weary look on its face as if it wanted to say, _Dude, don’t you think I tried that already?_

Link swore out loud as a foamy wave rushed up the beach and filled the tidal pool, its force pushing him sideways and knocking his hands away from the knots just as he thought he’d figured one out. His sudden angry exclamation made the merman stiffen with alarm and try to wiggle his tail again as if instinctively trying to swim away.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Link felt horrible. “I’m not gonna hurt you. Promise to God.” He put a hand on the merman’s green chest, wanting to hug or pet the creature but not knowing how it would take the gesture. His skin felt strange and very smooth, like thick tough latex. Link could feel his heart pounding hard. 

“Link,” the merman said again, quietly. Its eyes never left him. It spoke again, a few sentences of foreign words that sounded harsh and guttural to Link’s ears. 

As Link pulled his hand away, the merman reached out to touch it. Link felt a strange thrill as their fingers twined, human and merman. The merman had huge green hands complete with fingernails that appeared slightly pointed. Its palms were lighter, almost cream coloured. Despite the differences, the big green hand grasped Link’s just like a human’s would in a very long handshake. Then it smiled, and made a noise, a short sharp sound that sounded like _rat._ Link looked up sharply, and the merperson repeated itself, more slowly.

“Rhett?” Link tried to mimic. _Like in Gone With the Wind?_

The merman nodded. “Rhett,” it said, and pointed at itself. “Link,” it stressed, pointing at Link.

“Rhett,” he mused. “That suits you somehow.” When he smiled, the merman did too. Communicating with this mythical beast delighted Link. He held up one finger. “Wait,” he ordered, and scrambled for his backpack. Rummaging through it, Link thanked God that he still had some of his camping supplies inside from the weekend before, including an almost-unused Swiss army knife that he’d borrowed from his friend Greg for the camping trip. It never hurt to be prepared. The merman – _Rhett_ – seemed curious, so Link showed him some of its attachments before sliding out the knife part and mimicking slashing through the net with it.

Rhett seemed to understand this, and nodded firmly.

“Okay, big guy, let’s see what this baby can do.” Link wished that he could haul the merman further out of the water in case another wave surprised him, but it seemed Rhett needed seawater to breathe. He could lift his head up and hold his breath for a very long time, but kept leaning back under to inhale. 

Steeling himself, Link brandished the Swiss army knife with a steady hand and began to carefully edge the sharp blade beneath the masses of nylon strings. He couldn’t tell where the knots began, so he just focused on hacking away as much as he could, throwing the bits he’d gotten off further up shore so they wouldn’t wash away with the waves and go on to trap more sea life. The merman seemed tense as first, but with each chunk of netting that was cut away, he loosened up more and more. Hope was dawning in his eyes. 

Soon all that was left of the massive net were a few strands tying Rhett’s wrist to his lower tail, and the jungle of strings that bound together the dual fins at the end. Link went for his wrist first, thinking it’d be easier. _Those fins look so delicate._ Not that it’d be pretty if Link nicked the merman’s wrist instead. He was scared to dig the knife between the nylon and the merman’s skin but with a deep breath and a silent prayer he went in as slowly as he could and sawed upward. Rhett was holding himself as still as possible and gently pulling away from the knife to balance out the force of Link’s sawing movements.

When the merman’s wrist was freed, Link actually let out a cheer, and the merman echoed him in his own strange way. Their mutual joy made Link laugh, and this the merman copied too, with an unmistakeable _ho ho ho_ that rang out over the waves. Now the merman’s tail was the only part that remained entangled. At the end of it, the double fins had been folded over and stuck to the body of the tail itself in a way that would have certainly completely crippled the poor creature. _No wonder he was beached like this. Maybe he washed up with the waves. Or maybe he was stuck near the surface and was scared of boats seeing him, so he intentionally rode a wave into shore to crawl in some lonely tidal pool, hoping for the best._ Link hoped that he wouldn’t be permanently injured. The merman’s wrist bore deep marks embossed into the tough rubbery skin, but either it was bearing the pain with great bravery or they didn’t hurt badly enough to matter.

“Almost done,” Link said, and went to work on the tail fins. This was a more tedious problem, but the eager look in Rhett’s eyes spurred Link’s determination to free him. As he worked, Link talked in his own language, and from time to time Rhett talked back in his own tongue. Link liked the way Rhett spoke. The Mermish language seemed to have many vowels and lots of rolled _R_ s like Spanish, along with some clicking and squeaking sounds that were strangely cute.

Link said all of this out loud as he worked. “I like your language,” he said. “It’s beautiful. So are you, really. You’re a handsome merman.” It was true. “Do you live in a city? I wonder. Maybe you have a family. Or maybe you’re a lone traveller, exploring the world. That would be exciting. Why don’t humans ever see you? You must be good at hiding.” 

Rhett responded in short sentences, examining Link’s handiwork from time to time with an approving nod. When he wasn’t talking, the merman’s eyes drank in every inch of Link’s body as if committing it to memory. It felt a little invasive but Link couldn’t blame the merman for being inquisitive. Link himself was studying the merman as he continued to slash and cut, slash and cut. 

When he was down to the last tangle, Link began to laugh with relief. Rhett laughed with him. Link let out a whoop when his knife cut through, freeing Rhett entirely from the merciless net. With a touch of revulsion for the person who’d left the fishing net in the water, Link chucked the last bit of it as hard as he could into the pile he meant to take home to dispose of.

Rhett laughed again, and suddenly came alive with movement. As a big wave came rushing forward and into the pool, he grabbed the rocky edge and hauled himself over. He flopped awkwardly on land, but as soon as he got into the water, it was a different story. With a swish of his freed tail he shot forward like a bullet. Further and further he went, getting into the deeper water where he belonged. There was a gleeful grin on his face as he turned in circles before slapping his tail on the surface of the water to make a great splash. 

Link stood at the shore, watching the merman’s antics with a fierce sort of pride. “Yeah!” he cheered. “Look at you go, Rhett!”

Rhett came to a halt, bobbing at the surface and looking back at Link with puzzlement. He cocked his head and made a sweeping gesture with one long arm, as if to say, _Come here!_ Link couldn’t deny the beautiful creature anything, so he smiled, shucked off his wet shirt and shoes, and walked forward until he was just past the point where the waves were breaking. The water came up past his chest. Way further ahead, the merman gestured again. When Link didn’t move, he vanished beneath the surface and within seconds was wrapping very powerful arms around Link’s chest, pulling forward. It was cute at first, until Link flailed his feet and realized that he couldn’t touch the bottom anymore, and still the merman was pulling him out to sea.

“No!” Link yelled, suddenly terrified. He began to struggle. Did this thing know he couldn’t swim very well? Link was a passable swimmer, but had never been properly taught. He was unsure how far he could swim if he had to and didn’t care to find out. In contrast, the merman moved in the water like a graceful dancer, his long tail undulating and making the light shine off its scales in hypnotizing ripples. Strong arms held onto Link, holding him up effortlessly. Link clung to the merman, still fearful, and Rhett crooned something at him with unmistakeable affection. Link relaxed a fraction of an inch. Sheepishly, he loosened his grip on the merman and moved his hands around by his ribs to put some space between them. The skin there moved and raised beneath his fingers, making Link yelp. Rhett laughed again - _ho ho ho_ – and Link blushed when he realized that he’d been touching the merman’s gills. That made him feel strange. Rhett was so humanlike in so many ways, but of course he held his mouth under the water to breathe even when he raised the top of his head up to look at Link. Of course he had gills.

Rhett seemed to practically hover vertically in the water. Only the tip of his tail was moving, as far as Link could tell. The merman was _tall._ Including the tail fins, he was probably seven feet long – or tall, whatever. He wasn’t bulky but his chest was broad and well-muscled, his stomach pleasantly soft but not chubby. There was a circle-shaped scar on his lower back and streaks of salt in his hair. When Link got close, he could smell a nice sort of salty-musky masculine smell, briny but pleasant.

Rhett was studying his chest intently. Link looked down at himself. “What?” he asked when Rhett looked confused. The merman pointed at Link’s chest, and then rubbed his patch of chest hair. His fingers were soft and gentle.

“Oh! I was wearing a shirt before!” _He doesn’t know what clothing is. He might have assumed that people just had a lot of different types of fur or plumage._ “That’s, ah, that’s my chest hair – and whoa, whoa, those are definitely my nipples – you have those too, I see, I don’t know why you’re – Whoa!” Link had to giggle and couldn’t help but blush a bit. Rhett was being very handsy. His fingers tweaked first one nipple and then the other, and he looked at Link’s face for a reaction. Whatever he saw there pleased him, because he did it again, and then pointed to the goose bumps that rose on Link’s arms with a smile. 

When those green fingers returned to Link’s chest, the brunet’s nipples had hardened, and Link had to bite his lip to stifle a moan at the merman’s touch. “No,” he said. “No.” He pushed Rhett’s hand away, and the merman looked confused. He frowned, pondering this development, and put his arms back around Link’s shoulders. 

Link hugged him back, beginning to relax enough to enjoy floating here, alone and safe in the arms of a handsome mythical beast who seemed quite friendly. _I hope I can get him to understand that I need to head back to shore eventually,_ Link thought to himself as Rhett lazily flicked his tail to glide smoothly through the water. 

Once the shore was out of sight, they stopped again. Rhett asked a question in his strange tongue, and Link hesitated. He didn’t want to nod or shake his head without understanding what the question was. The merman gave him a friendly smile before reaching out to glide his fingertips down Link’s chest and stomach, feeling where he had hair and where he didn’t, moving restlessly up and down his ribcage as if it were strange that Link didn’t have gills, then touching Link’s arms and his hair and even his face. Link submitted to the exploration. He understood too well the powerful curiosity that filled the merman. Link was just as eager to learn more about Rhett.

“Can I?” he asked, and Rhett’s hands settled on his waist as he reached out to touch the merman. He started with the upswept hair, feeling how it sprung back into place when he tugged it lightly. Then he became captivated by the strong biceps that held him up so easily. The gills he was scared of, but the merman only laughed at his hesitation, so Link went ahead and laid his hand over the gently moving crescent-shaped slit high up on Rhett’s ribs and marvelled at the movement he felt on his palm. The dark avocado-coloured stripes across the merman’s shoulders and chest felt slightly raised, almost like how a scar on his own skin might feel, and when he traced one with a single finger, Rhett shivered. 

“Does that feel good for you?” Link wondered out loud, unsure of how he felt about touching a merman to give him pleasure. Then he decided it was stupid to feel strange. Today he had rescued a freaking _merman_. He had to re-define ‘strange’.

There was another burning question Link wished he could ask as he stared down at Rhett’s tail, but the very thought of it made him blush.

Rhett didn’t notice his embarrassment. He now seemed interested in the waistband of Link’s navy blue shorts. Those long pale green fingers caressed the bunched elastic material, and then dipped slightly beneath to feel how it easily pulled away from Link’s body. With a slightly furrowed brow, the merman looked to Link as if evaluating whether or not this action caused pain. 

“It’s not me,” Link tried to explain, pinching the leg of the shorts and waving it around so that Rhett could see how his real leg was beneath. “More clothes. Like my shirt. These are my – Oh, gosh!” Whether or not Rhett saw it as an explanation or an invitation was hard to determine, because with another one of those strange smiles the merman thrust a hand into the leg opening to feel Link’s inner thigh. Link gasped just as a small swell rose up and he got a mouthful of seawater. Spluttering, Link managed to say, “Hey, whoa, hey there, don’t do that! Bad, bad!” It sounded like he was talking to a dog. “No!”

“No,” Rhett repeated, and pulled his hand away. The shock of that nearly knocked Link sideways.

“You understood!” he cried delightedly. 

Rhett looked pleased with himself. He kept staring at Link’s crotch. It was only then that Link realized that his manhood was stiffening, and Rhett could clearly see it too. Link’s delight turned into embarrassment and he tried to shift his body to make the growing bulge less noticeable. His efforts failed. 

The merman spoke again, lowering his mouth beneath the water to breathe in. He sounded amused, although it was hard to tell. Link flushed. Did Link offend him somehow? He knew his face was practically crimson. But Rhett seemed intrigued. His eyes were hooded and there was a sexy smirk on his deep jade lips. Slowly, the merman pulled Link’s shorts off so he was as naked as the merman before him. 

Link looked down to see his cock jutting upward, rock-hard already. He let out a small whimper as Rhett moved closer, rubbing his lower stomach against Link’s manhood and sending a powerful rush through his body. The merman curled his tail around Link to support him as he stared appreciatively. Now that both his hands were free, they cupped Link’s ribs and slid them downward, moving so slowly that Link thought his heart might explode with anticipation.

“Oh…oh, Rhett, what are you…”

The merman’s hands inched closer. First he felt the protruding hipbones, and then the trail of hair beneath Link’s navel. Of course he had to squeeze each buttcheek as well, exploring the cleft with a reckless abandon that made Link squirm and gasp. _Does he know what that’s doing to me?_ Link wondered wildly as his cock grew even harder. Hurriedly, he tied his shorts around one wrist before he became so lost in ecstasy that he dropped them to the bottom of the ocean. 

Rhett may have sensed his increased arousal, because he arched one eyebrow and let his fingertips dip between Link’s cheeks again, lightly brushing against the sensitive opening there. Link went rigid, wondering with a hint of fear how far the merman wanted to go, but he didn’t linger there long. His eyes remained on Link’s cock, so pink compared to the merman’s green skin and the deep blue of the ocean all around them. He touched Link’s pubic hair and brushed his thumbs across the wiry curls. Then he cautiously took Link’s shaft between his palms and massaged him lightly. It felt so good that Link’s eyes fluttered shut and a low moan rose from his throat.

“No?” Rhett queried, his purring baritone softening.

“I….it’s okay. Yes, yes. Yes,” Link breathed, unable to glance away from the burning green eyes fixed upon him.

“Yes,” Rhett repeated, and wrapped his hand firmly around Link’s erect cock, stroking him hard and fast until Link’s limbs felt soft as butter and his head was spinning. The water made Link feel as if he were floating there weightlessly without any cares in the world. All that mattered was the warmth of Rhett’s body and the friction of his hand. And gosh, the merman was _talented._ He seemed to know when to speed up and when to grip more tightly, and when to slow down when it became too much to handle.

With his free hand he played with Link’s nipples, pinching them just hard enough to hurt in a good way and then soothing the pain with gentle rubbing. Link liked a bit of pain, and his nipples had always been sensitive. 

Rhett looked at Link’s face as his fingers began to squeeze down on one reddened nipple, harder and harder, until Link whimpered and the pressure eased. 

“Yes,” he told Rhett brokenly, over and over. “Yes, yes. G-god, don’t stop.”

With a devious look, Rhett swooped down and closed his teeth around the abused and sensitive bud. At the same time, the hand on Link’s manhood sped up, pumping hard enough that Link could see his chest heaving and his gills working frantically.

Link let out a sound that could probably be heard from shore. His toes curled and all his muscles went almost painfully rigid. “Aaah, oh gosh Rhett, oh please, yes, I’m going to – I’m gonna – ” 

With a quiet splash, Rhett lifted his head out of the water to kiss the brunet’s slack lips. “Link,” the merman rumbled when they broke apart, sounding just as desperate.

Link swallowed a mouthful of seawater accidentally as his mouth gaped open. He gasped for air and clawed at Rhett’s shoulders as he the combination of pleasure and the merman’s sexy voice pushed him helplessly over the edge. With a cry vaguely resembling Rhett’s name, Link came so hard that his vision went blurry and the sound of his heart pounding seemed as loud as the screams of a circling seagull above.

“Hmmm,” Rhett seemed to sigh. He released Link’s softening cock and pulled the human into his arms, stroking down the length of his spine. With a kiss to Link’s temple, the merman waited patiently for Link to recover.

Finally Link opened his eyes and came back to himself. Blinking away the stinging saltwater, he smiled lovingly at Rhett, and then looked down and blushed to see the floating pearlescent strands swirling between them. One ended up touching Rhett’s stomach. 

The merman pointed to the white sticky fluid and gave Link another grin that seemed more than a little cocky. When he spoke, Link translated his words as some sort of bragging and giggled in response. 

He felt light headed and giddy. “You’re magical,” Link told Rhett, and then laughed again. “I just had sex with a merman. Wow. How is this happening?” He hugged Rhett’s tail with his legs. “Gosh, I’m glad you can hold me up so well. I don’t even know if I could stand up right now, much less swim.”

Rhett nodded in response, but seemed distracted. His tail was moving quite restlessly and he stiffened when Link wrapped his legs around it more tightly.

“What’s wrong?” Link asked, and then smacked his forehead. “Oh. Duh. You’re…you liked that too, huh?” Link knew that he should probably reciprocate, but he was scared. And confused. Where did a merman hide himself? The lower half of Rhett seemed to be pure fish. But the merman rutted against him, insistent, his eyes burning with need. _You owe me_ , his face seemed to say. _And I know you want it._

“Okay. Um. Okay.” Link swallowed hard and looked down beneath the water. Rhett’s tail was smooth and seemed to be nothing but dark green scales. “I don’t know…how to, um…” 

Rhett grinned at him widely. He had small, very white, very even teeth that barely showed even when he smiled so enthusiastically. Link had a sneaking suspicion that the merman found the situation hilarious.

“I’m gonna reason this out, here,” Link said aloud to himself. “You’re half fish, right? How do fish reproduce?” The answer came to him, and he shuddered. “Um, wait, no. You’re clearly a mammal. Warm-blooded and all. So you probably have…but I just don’t get where…Help me out here!” Link tried to convey his meaning by reaching for where Rhett’s crotch would be if his tail were a pair of legs.

The merman made a long string of noises, then took Link’s wrist gently and placed it flat against his scales. The texture was remarkable. Not fishy at all. The scales weren’t slimy like fish scales – it was more like touching a soft, smooth but lightly textured snake. What Link definitely didn’t feel was anything resembling genitals, and couldn’t tell whether or not he was disappointed.

Rhett sighed heavily, made an exasperated sound and began to rub his own hand over himself. His fingers kept stroking a certain spot. Link stared at it for a long time, wondering if the slightly darker area there was a trick of the light in the water. Then, with determination, he pushed Rhett’s hand aside and repeated the motion the merman had demonstrated.

A strange tightness seized him as Link realized there was a small divide in the scales that seemed to be widening. Rhett’s face was beginning to go slack with pleasure. His eyes closed and he heaved a loud, relaxed sigh. With a shock that practically made his heart jump out of his throat, Link suddenly felt – something – pushing through the divide, filling his hand. It was hard and hot to the touch and slightly slick all over. Rhett’s body surged forward, thrusting the growing organ into Link’s hand with a deep, happy moan. 

“Mmm, mmh,” Rhett purred. “Mmmmmh…”

 _I should be revolted. This is wrong, so wrong. Oh, my God._ “This is…this is your…Oh, wow. Oh, gosh, Rhett.” Link’s hand shook as he tried to stroke it along the merman’s length. “Is this…is this right?”

Rhett keened and gripped a handful of Link’s hair. His pleasure was so palpable that Link’s doubts vanished and his hand began to move more surely. It was a little strange, but it was still clearly an erect cock, shaped like his own even if it was a pale cream-green like the palms of Rhett’s hands and the insides of his ears. It felt heavy in Link’s hand, as big as the rest of the merman, and Link couldn’t help but stroke it faster. Its natural slickness made the action easy, and Rhett seemed to like everything he did. Every touch brought forth a groan or a twitch of his tail fins.

The more he stroked, the more Rhett grew. Link had no idea what he was doing, why he liked this so much or why he wasn’t freaked out at all. Finally it seemed that Rhett was all the way out of wherever he was tucked away when not aroused in order to be streamlined for swimming. The sheer size of it took Link’s breath away. The merman had something like foreskin, that pulled back to expose more sensitive skin at the head. When Link rubbed a thumb over the tip of it he was rewarded with another moan. Some part deep down inside of himself wondered what it would taste like if he wrapped his lips around the head until Rhett grew wild and thrust himself forward to fill Link’s mouth and throat.

“Yes, oh Rhett, yes, you like that, don’t you?” Link didn’t stop talking, didn’t stop stroking. The merman’s eyes were practically rolling back in his head. “That’s good, Rhett. Gosh, you’re so hot. This is so hot. You’re so big, bigger than anyone I’ve ever seen. It turns me on so much. I wish we were on land. I’d do…I’d do a lot more for you, man, I would. Want it so bad.” Words that would normally make him blush were easier to say when his partner didn’t speak the same language. 

“L-Link,” the merman groaned, desperate. “Link…Yes, _Link._ ”

Hearing the merman say his name in that throaty voice gave Link another thrill. It seemed that Rhett was getting close. As the shaft swelled even further in Link’s hands, Rhett buried his face in his neck, making small whimpery squeaks and gripping onto Link so tightly that his pointed nails almost hurt a little. 

Link was past caring. “Yeah, come on, come on Rhett, wanna make you feel good. Wanna make you come too,” he panted, working his hand furiously until he heard a wild muffled cry and something much warmer than water spurted into Link’s palm. 

“ _Link!_ ” the merman almost yelled, his body going rigid. His mouth slid wetly over Link’s throat before he bit hard at the side of his neck, making Link moan too. More warmth pulsed through his fingers and into the water. Link looked down, half-expecting _that_ to be green too, but the ropey strings of come floating between them looked just like Link’s, except there was an obscene amount of it. Squeezing the merman’s cock again brought forth one last weak dribble, and Rhett’s body seemed to go boneless. He could barely hold Link up. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay, I can swim. You don’t have to,” Link tried to tell him, kicking his feet a little to help keep them afloat. The merman either didn’t understand or didn’t trust Link not to drown because he only raised his head and roused himself. He shifted his grip on Link’s body to hold him to his chest.

Link smiled at his efforts and pushed his face into the merman’s shoulder, kissing him there and tasting the salt of the sea. Long fingers ran through his dark hair, and Rhett murmured to him softly while his tail fins stroked the back of Link’s calves. The gentle motion of the water and the warmth of Rhett’s body against his were so soothing that Link could have fallen asleep. And he did, at least for a few minutes, for suddenly Rhett was poking him and Link came back to reality with a start.

He yawned widely and moved to be arms’ length away from the beautiful merman. To stretch his limbs, he broke free of Rhett’s grasp to tread water on his own. Rhett watched his legs dubiously as if unsure whether or not to lunge forward and support him again. 

“I’m fine,” Link said with a chuckle. And he gave a kick and swam off a few feet, paddling in a circle to show how he could swim too.

Rhett didn’t seem too impressed. He gave a snort and swung his tail around to smack Link lightly on the butt as he passed.

“Hey!” Link protested, grabbing for the tail. It slid through his hands like liquid and he reached for Rhett’s shoulders instead. The merman easily evaded him. “No fair!” Link told him, and got another gentle smack of the tail on his butt. He tried to chase Rhett, but it was impossible. Eventually Rhett took pity and slowed down enough to let Link ‘catch’ him, and Link celebrated by taking the merman’s bearded chin in hand and kissing both cheeks, his nose, his lips. 

After a while Rhett looked at the setting sun, pointed in the direction of the shore and tugged on Link’s arm. Link nodded, understanding. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, let’s go back.”

Rhett turned onto his stomach and motioned for Link to get on his back. At least, that was what Link thought the merman wanted. It felt strange to clamber onto Rhett’s back with his legs dangling over his sides, like he was riding a horse, but Rhett didn’t seem to mind. The merman was evidently very strong and moved like Link was light as a feather. 

“Whoa,” Link muttered as he squirmed to get comfortable. “Where do I hold on?” He considered, and then decided to lean forward and grip Rhett’s shoulders tightly so as to not disturb the motion of the green merman’s powerful tail.

And with that, they began to swim. This time, Link had no fear. He laughed out loud as he soared through the water, feeling like he was flying. Rhett was going faster than Link would have ever believed possible, using his tail to swoop from side to side as if trying his best to entertain Link. And it was working. The salty ocean breeze felt good on his face, cool and refreshing. Out here on the sea, it was hard to remember his problems and worries. For now there was only Rhett, and the waves, and the gorgeous golden colour of sunshine sparkling off the water like a great glimmering blanket strewn with yellow diamonds. _This is better than any amusement park ride, better than surfing, better than anything!_

Then he remembered the way the handsome merman had moaned and shuddered and bit at his neck in the moment of his pleasure, and Link’s cheeks reddened. _Maybe not better than anything_ , he amended.

Rhett eventually brought him back to where he’d first carried him out to sea. Despite how safe he felt with the merman, Link couldn’t help but sigh in relief when his feet brushed the sandy bottom and he could stand on his own again. He turned around and grinned at his new friend, admiring the brilliant colour of his skin in the sunset, and Rhett kissed him hard until the merman lost his breath and had to duck under the water again to pant for oxygen. That made Link laugh, and Rhett made an indignant noise and playfully tickled Link’s ribs with a devious look in his eyes. Link shrieked and Rhett burst out his loudest laugh yet. Together they rolled in the shallow water, play-wrestling and tickling each other and occasionally stopping to kiss deeply. When they grew tired of this game, they held each other and cuddled, rocking gently with the swell of the sea.

Rhett was smiling, but Link suddenly noticed that he kept looking longingly at the horizon. Link’s heart went out to him. They’d been out here for hours. Link had to go home. And so did Rhett.

“I guess…I guess we have to say goodbye,” Link managed to say. Rhett squeezed his hand and looked imploringly at him. Link listened hard to the words that the merman told him in a low voice until he thought he’d gotten the meaning. _Come back. Come back to this spot,_ Rhett seemed to be saying, gesturing to various landmarks and miming actions as best as he could.

“I’ll come back,” Link promised. “I…I really like you.”

Though they shared no common language, the words Rhett murmured back were as unmistakeably loving as his own. They understood each other. And Link understood that Rhett had to go, at least for now. Link wished he knew where Rhett lived, if there were lots of merpeople like him, friends and family that were worried sick over where he’d been. Maybe someone to fuss over him and feed him and care for him. Link hoped so. Rhett seemed torn between wanting Link and wanting to go home. And Link understood all too well.

“Go on,” Link told him. “You need to go home. I know. I’ll see you again.” 

With one last lingering look, Rhett slowly began to swim out to sea with his tail fins drooping. When he had gotten no more than fifteen feet away, he stopped and turned and gestured at Link to put his head under the water.

Link took a deep breath and nodded. He ducked down, submerging himself, wondering what Rhett was doing now.

The answer came to him immediately. His jaw dropped and his body went weak with wonder.

Rhett was _singing_. His voice was as magical as the sirens and kelpies of ancient folklore. It was a song of joy and love and celebration, and his voice was so pure that Link almost gasped underwater. Link knew the song was for him, and what it meant. He listened until the voice grew faint and his lungs began to burn before finally wading back to shore with a smile on his face. Music was a language they could both understand.

“I think I love you, too,” he whispered.


End file.
